


Avarice

by TheLadyFrost



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Brutal Murder, Canon - When I Can, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Deal with a Devil, Demonic Possession, Depression, Dominance, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description, Multi, Multiple Religion & Lore Sources, No spoilers for 5, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Not Canon Compliant, Partner Betrayal, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Romance, Self-Harm, Shameless Smut, Werewolf Lore, cross - Freeform, theinferno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 14:39:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18075293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyFrost/pseuds/TheLadyFrost
Summary: It should have been a simple fetch and carry. It should have gone like clockwork. But nothing in his world is ever that straightforward. Everything - all of it- has a price.





	1. Chapter 1

**_Limbo_ **

* * *

The long dark slid wetly over cobblestones gone red with blood. Where shadows lengthened, lies were bred and from them emerged the demons that would come to rule the world. There was no purity among the ruins of what had once been the places were people dwelled. Where laughter echoed, only emptiness remained.

Hollow.

Heartless.

Void.

It was hard to find the light in the darkness of what permeated each ragged circle of hell. It was hard to remember what battles were worth fighting. It was hard to get up... _get up..._ _ **get up...**_ when you were so far down you were drowning.

What was he forgetting?

The first slice kissed with a cry of steel off the edge of his blade. He lost his footing and tumbled to his ass on the boiling broken road. The slick edge of the striking weapon opened his face from ear to chin - and his blood splattered hotly onto the billowing swell beneath him.

There was no more safe place between one world and the next - hell had come for them. Hell on Earth was upon the masses. The Devil was in the streets. The Devil was in the sheets. The Devil was -

- _GET UP._

He shook his head and grabbed desperately for the weapon he'd lost in the fray.

The claws came for his eyes.

Blinded - he'd likely be cleaved to pieces while he tried to run.

He had to...

"...help me."

No. No.  _NO. That was the wrong answer too. He didn't need help. What did he need?_

He was being held in scorn. Held in scorn? Why was that accursed Italian travesty always penetrating his life like an unwanted cock in his ass? How did he escape the inevitable parallel between the world, the inferno, and the real circles of hell?

There weren't nine levels of it, after all, there were hundreds. Thousands. Millions.

And all of them were here on Earth.

Mundus. Mundus? Was Mundus here? Had he - would he-  _could he..._ but no.

He'd kill him. He'd perform an exorcism and send that bastard back to whirling vortex of fucking space. He'd -

"...help me."

**_-damnit!_ **

_**What was happening to him? What was this?** _

_What kind of putrescent alternate universe found him without a weapon, at the mercy of a myriad of myopic monsters, and mercilessly tossed into a tempest of pathetic begging...like some kind of cuck?_

His hands grabbed desperately for the sword even as the second slash left his face split open as if the Joker were attempting to demonstrate how he'd come by that infamous grin.

The blood filled his palm. He lifted it, horrified, staring at the spill of sticky red ruin down his gloves. Whose blood was on on his hands?

His?

The world's?

He lifted those bleeding palms to the darkness and whispered, "... _help me_."

The claws speared toward his desperate face as Rebellion slid through his grip and tumbled away. There was no more rebellion. There was no more withstanding.

There was nothing between hell and heaven now - but him.

And he was on his own.

As the claws raced toward him, he quipped, "I'm not drunk enough for this shit," and he pushed off the ground to face the demon with his bare hands.

The moment had come to stop straddling limbo - it was time to make a stand.


	2. Before the Fall: A Trip to the Hollow

**December 11th -Devil May Cry -**

* * *

**-Before the Fall: A Trip to the Hollow-**

* * *

He wrestled demons that she'd never understand. He was half of one - some formed from the seeds of his father's genes, some bred from the bones of his own beginnings. He was a man who dwelt in humor, the kind that hurt and healed in a way that seldom few could offer. He was a man who dwelt in darkness and the world offered him little to compensate for the things he'd lost in the war.

He was a man with nothing left to lose, and in about eighteen hours - he'd be dead. Even his body would fail him. Though he didn't know, couldn't know, and she herself couldn't protect him from it. For now? He was a man in limbo - lost between demon and mortal, half drowning in the quagmire of his own creation.

He eased the pain with booze. If he wasn't working, he was drunk.

He was mostly that way when she found him. He was drunk and angry, drunk and defeated, drunk and tempest tossed, drunk and arrogant and determined. His mood was never the same twice. His penchant for pizza and Jack Daniels was comic.

He was a Ninja Turtle with less charm and better hair.

He'd fallen asleep with his boots on his desk and the television droning mindlessly across the room. The sweaty black tank top he wore was plastered to his chest and stomach as he snored. Cocked to the side, his shaggy silver hair obscured his face while he slumbered. The scruffy five days worth of beard on his face reminded her he wasn't the body she'd met years ago anymore.

Were either of them?

He'd christened her with a new name - he'd offered her a partnership to a new future. He'd helped her close the circle on her past.

It was a lifetime in the little while they'd known each other.

But would they ever really "know" one another?

Amused, Lady crouched beside his chair and tapped a nail on his belt buckle. He didn't respond, muttering in his sleep. She almost shook him awake when she stopped and listened to what he was saying.

She could pick out the desperation in his mumbles. The tone wasn't like him at all. It was almost pleading. It wasn't uncommon for him to dream - he was known to tread the line between the waking world and the one that he'd left behind. But this was different. It was prophetic or something. He'd, lately, been quiet and reflective - found to be staring for long moments into the dark outside the shop.

But his internal struggles were usually his own. Dante didn't share his burdens with willing ears.

He prefered to bury his problems between the thighs of a willing woman.

And yet...even that had become less and less as the last few months had brought more demons to their door than normal. The devils, it seemed, were rising in greater numbers. Why?

She was still working with Trish to find the answers.

Lady almost rose to let him finish his dream but his face flinched in sleep. His hand clenched atop the desk on nothing. He jerked in the seat and gasped out a long breath.

These were all things one might do in a nightmare. It was fine. It really was.

Until he stopped breathing. His body slumped to the side and his chest went still.

Alarmed, Lady gripped his shoulders and shook him, calling his name. The second time she did it, he jerked and grunted, his legs kicking on the desk. His bottle of Jack Daniels was tossed clear, smashing musically into the floor a tinkle of broken glass. His hands grabbed her wrists and jerked.

Lady let him tug her in against him. He started to toss her up and over his head and froze when she landed against his chest - and the pistol in her hands pressed into his belly.

Quietly, she soothed, "Easy, Dante. It's me. Easy."

The panic and sleep shook off his face as fast the hair he tossed from his eyes. Amusement slid into its place as he grouched, "Christ in crotchless panties, doll face, at least wake up me up with your hand in my pants next time."

Lady rolled her eyes, watching his tired face from a few inches away, "Want to tell me about the dream?"

"Nope. Want to clear my head and stick your hand in my pants anyway?"

Lady snorted and gave him a shove, "I don't have time to go on a search and rescue right now, I'm afraid. But maybe when I feel like killing time for no reward."

"Ouch." Unoffended, he slapped her ass. When she didn't resist, his hand crept under the little skirt she wore to rub her bare cheek. He wondered if she even owned underwear that wasn't a swatch of silk tortorously strung up her perfect ass. Sometimes he figured she was there to tempt him back to hell.

Seriously.

It was curious that she was the only woman in the world he didn't think of as something you fucked and forgot about. Trish, naturally, but there was nothing about Trish for him that wasn't swirled up in an incestous side story of his life that left even his great love of shitty soap operas couldn't explain away. Trish looked like his mother. He might be the son of a devil - but he wasn't a son of a bitch. He just wasn't Oedipus enough to want to fuck his mother.

Testing them both, Dante shifted his other hand to cup her face. His thumb traced her throat as his other trailed almost chastely over her tempting cheek. Her face wasn't a girl that was swooning. It wasn't a girl that was mooning. It wasn't anything. It was just as blank as his. She might love his hands on her, she might hate it. Her face said it was his choice.

The best choice was always to never push it further than he was ready. But it didn't stop him from touching her. She let that go on until he slid his hand down, shaking his head. A great tease. For both of them. Such was the way of things with them. She felt like they'd been playing this flirt/fight/friend routine since the moment they'd met.

He let go of her, lamenting the loss of his leaking whiskey around his boots as he sat up. "Shit. That was almost a full fifth."

Lady leaned back, propping her butt on the desk.

"What was the dream, Dante?"

He shook his head, tossing his tempestuous hair back from his face. He scratched his beard and shrugged, "I can't get a grip on it. Not yet. Vergil was there. Why? I don't know why."

"Your brother?"

They held gazes for long enough that her finally grumped, "Sharing the same parents don't make us brothers."

Lady cross her ankles, watching him pick at the cold pizza on his desk. "What about Mundus?"

Surprised, he glanced back up at her face. "Was he? I don't remember."

"You muttered his name...twice."

Dante furrowed his brow tapping one finger on the file open beside the pizza. The face of their newest client stared up at them - Angelo Diagostini. A filthy black market arms dealer. He needed safe passage through Castello Dolore. Apparently selling devil appendages to willing buyers for weaponization hadn't made him the most popular man on the block. He wasn't their usual client of course, but Dante didn't judge the clientele for their nefarious activities, so long as the check cleared.

Oddly enough, Diagostini was helping weed out devils for them by giving the common people a way to fight back. In a way, he was a perverted version of a modern day Robin Hood. Helping him, helped them.

Dante shook his head, sighing, "I don't remember him being part of it. I remember being..." He trailed off and Lady waited, watching him.

Finally he said, "...weak. I remember being weak." He sounded so angry about it. Curious about the volatile reaction to a dream, Lady tilted her head. "I've never faced Mundus and been weak. What the fuck kinda dream is that?"

Lady cupped his chin and turned his face up to her. "The kind we all have from time to time. You're tired. You're over worked. You need a vacation. Let me and Trish take care of Diagostini and go take a siesta. Harness your chi. Revive your spirit. Or whatever the hell you call it."

Dante laughed, rolling his eyes, "I'm good. Seriously. I need a shot of JD and a good night's sleep, Lady. Not a cathartic weekend in a monastery. You think I need to light some incense and chant?"

Lady shrugged, "Why not? We all have our needs."

His hand slid over the outside of her left thigh, slipping under the skirt. His lips turned in toward her wrist and kissed the thump of her pulse there. "True. But mine ain't the kind that comes from silence and celibacy, doll face. I promise you."

Celibacy was nearly as laughable to him as a vacation. What was vacation? Their world was a series of endless struggles where the living were often losing to the damned. There wasn't alot of time for beaches and sandcastles.

Although he wondered what Lady would look like lounging beside foamy seas in a tiny bikini.

The little black leather skirt she wore over the thigh black boots was functional, erotic, and utterly her. It was topped by a silvery halter-top and a padded red jacket that reminded him of Michael Jackson's infamous leather one. She was, as always, the perfect combination of bad ass, bad girl, and bad idea to put his hands on her.

She had looped a holster around her narrow waist that contained the pistol sitting on the desk at her left hip and she had more pouches strapped at her thighs and back. Sitting on the floor by the wall was the weapon she'd been working on for weeks - a hand-cannon of some kind harnessing UV rays to convert into fire. She was trying to use the sun to make a flame thrower to fry devils.

Beautiful. Deadly. Damning.

She was all these things and more.

Lady mused, quietly, "What are you afraid of?"

They held eyes as his hand stroked against her hip beneath the skirt. He said nothing.

But she added, "You afraid you might like what life looks like without the fight?"

He hated that about her too. She was, always, saying things like that to him. As if there would ever come a time that the world didn't need devil hunters. As if it was just something you could walk away from and retire.

It wasn't.

It wouldn't ever be.

This was a battle that only ended when time did.

Or maybe the world.

Was one as infinite as the other?

His head hurt trying to make sense from it all. She was right about one thing - he needed a brain break from the questions. His fingers hooked around her hip and Dante urged, "Why don't you hold me and help me handle my fear?"

Lady shifted and his other hand cupped her free hip to turn her toward him. He settled her in front of him and she let him, kicking his legs out until she straddled above his thighs so he could look up at her where he lounged. Her dark hair framed her bicolored eyes as she wondered, "Will you joke while you burn?"

His tone was mocking but his face was serious as he returned, "Depends on who's burning with me."

Lady watched him press his lips to her belly button but didn't touch him. "Hell hath no fury, they say."

The laughter on him made her feel better as he leaned back to look up at her. "Yeah? Try me. Hells all around us...and I got all kinds of fury, kid."

His fingers inched her skirt up. His head tilted. She tilted hers back, wondering how far he'd take it. There was, always, a safe stopping point. What happened if she let him go until they were both satisfied?

She was never the type to play it safe over taking a big risk. She shifted her hands to the latches on her skirt to release them. Dante cocked his head and mused, "Like the fury, huh?"

And Lady replied, "Mines bigger than yours is."

He laughed. He just did. Although he was betting they wouldn't be laughing when they were done. He lifted his hands to help her remove the skirt.

A commotion outside of the shop had them both glancing over as the door was thrown wide and Trish barreled through looking filthy, harried, and windblown. She pointed at them, her generous bust jiggling in her leather corset, "You two have time to play footsie while I'm out there keeping the wolf from the door?"

Curious, Dante tilted his head, "Literally?"

The answer came in the form of an enormous mutated wolf that barreled through the heavy steel door with slobbering jaws and a face split twice with teeth and corruption. It knocked Trish to the floor, Lady reached for the pistol on the desk beside her hip, and Dante had already beaten her to it. The wolf was blasted back the way it had come by the cacophonous roar of the heavy round unleashed from the mouth of the big weapon. The door squealed. The wolf yelped. Trish kicked the offender free and latched the door behind it.

And Dante queried, "That it? You're losing your touch, T."

In answer, Trish threw a handful of gravel at him that had joined her on the floor. It peppered the desk harmlessly as he laughed.

And Lady interjected, "Is Diagostini with you?"

Trish rolled her eyes, rising from the ground. "You kidding? That sniveling little turd. He's waiting in his stupid safe house across town for us to come get him. He wouldn't leave with me. He wanted..." She licked her teeth twice and gave Dante a dirty look before she finished, tossing her hands up to do air quotes around the words, "... _the man_ he hired to escort him."

Dante shrugged, "Can't see why it's worth getting upset over, doll face. Sometimes a man just needs another man to make him feel safe."

Lady quipped, "And sometimes two dicks are too many."

Trish added, rising from the floor, "That little turd doesn't have a dick, I promise you that. He's lacking any balls too. Fucking coward."

There was nothing Trish hated worse than a cowering simpleton. Diagostini was the top of his trade - but he wasn't brave about it. He was small, sported enormous coke bottle thick glasses and a curved spine, and looked more like Quasimodo than Robin Hood. But literary figures aside, he was the client.

So he also got what he wanted - to a certain extent.

Mourning the possibility of playtime with Lady, Dante let go of her and rose, shifting toward the coat rack beside his desk to grab for his duster. It whispered like only good leather could before he tossed it over his impressive shoulders.

Trish limped a little toward the bathroom to treat the wound on her leg. Lady helped her, making her hiss as the antiobiotic ointment cooled the burning pain and sealed the wound. The smell of sulfur was thick and acrid in the air.

Curious, Trish lamented, "Why do they have to smell like rotten eggs? Because it's not bad enough to be fucking evil. They have to stink too?"

Dante shot Lady a look laced with laughter, "... _they?_ I hate to be the bearer of bad news, toots, but you're one of  _them._ "

Trish rolled her eyes, "I don't smell like shit, Dante. I never did. It's these fledglings. I swear to god."

A demon swearing to god was always amusing. It was also common in their office. Lady treated the wound on the back of her shoulder next as Trish told Dante all about Diagostini's hide out.

"It's the old armory for the National Guard. You know the one? It's like a bunker after WWII. It's gated. He's got patrols walking it. He's got stockpiles of old ammunition piled to the ceiling in there. If he was facing  _humans_ then he'd be set. But all that shit is useless against demons. I told him that. But again, since I don't have the right chromosomes - he could care less about what I said. Pretty sure one of his goons referred to me as a "gash" at one point."

Lady rolled her eyes. Dante shrugged, "What? It's anatomically correct."

Lady threw the bottle of antiseptic at him and he batted it away, chuckling.

"I'll go get him. You two meet me at the edge of town for the escort."

Trish blinked twice and cooed, "Ooooh what a big man you are! You sure you need us to help you? Men don't need bitches to protect them from stitches."

Lady snorted out a laugh. Dante shrugged, "I like eye candy, Trish. Clearly. I drag you along to stare at your rack."

Trish took a shot of whiskey that he handed her as he passed by. "Please. You stare at your mother's tits?"

He shrugged again as he holstered Rebellion along his back. "I'm a dude. I stare at everyone's tits. If the Pope had tits, I'd look."

Lady laughed again and rolled her eyes. He turned and picked up Ebony and Ivory to holster them at his thighs. Trish glanced at Lady and back at Dante. She bobbled her brows. Lady shrugged.

For as long as she'd known her, Trish was always trying to push them together. It wasn't happening. Or was it? It was always a razor edge. Lady knew where her feelings lay. She'd known...probably for years now.

Where? Somewhere between madly in love and possibly obsessed.

But keeping it professional - and flirtatiously dangerous- was comfortable for both of them. So she let it ride. Trish, however, was never far from flinging them together in hopes of perfecting the next great love story of their generation. The thing about Dante?

It wasn't love he was courting when he played with Lady. It was so much more simple than that. Dante did torture - sometimes his own, sometimes others- but he didn't do love. Love was a torture he wasn't willing to endure. Why? It would hurt him too. In fairness, he didn't seem to mind letting a woman take control of him, when the mood was right, but god forbid she reach passed his cock toward his heart.

He guarded that like Cerebrus at the gates of Hell.

He guarded his clients the same.

Morrison funneled them plenty of the latter, but even his clever selection of work couldn't stop Dante from spending their small overhead of cash on sinful self gratification. He was, after all, a devil and though they may cry when it suited - devils much preferred to play. And Dante liked to drop copious amounts of money on things he couldn't really afford. The good news was that the infusion of cash from Diagostini would keep them afloat for awhile - even with Dante's love of Italian leather boots trying to get the power turned off every other month.

Dante swung toward the door, telling them, "I'll go parley with the lady hater. You two gather up the cavalry. Don't waste too much time pillow fighting and braiding each other's hair."

Trish tossed the stapler off his desk at him and hit the door as he left, chuckling.

She heard the tell tale sounds of fighting beyond the scarred surface and figured he deserved the wolf she'd faced clawing him up a bit. The smug little bastard, he was always so full of himself. It was, admittedly, part of his charm. But it was also annoying as hell when they're one client was a misogynist. He was just playing that for all it was worth.

Amusing, given that his two partners in the business were both women.

While they loaded the van behind the building, Trish inquired, "You gonna tell me what I burst in on back there?"

Lady shrugged, loading an assault bag full of flame rounds for the Kalina Ann. "What else? Dante eats, sleeps, drinks - and likes to fuck."

"You forgot his penchant for fighting."

They paused, glancing at each other, and Lady finally returned, "It was nothing. Don't read anything into it."

"Your face while he touched you says I don't need to be able to read, Lady. I just need to not be blind."

Lady sighed, shifting to leap into the passenger seat as Trish took the wheel. "It's fine. Sometimes he likes to touch me."

Curious about it, Trish guided the van over the rickety cracked streets. "Touch you?"

"Yeah. Like...comforting or something."

Trish nodded, keeping her face wise and sage as she answered, "Hmm. Like a pet."

Insulted, Lady furrowed her brow, "No. Not a pet. Like..." She trailed off, seeking the right comparison. Trish added, "Like a doll."

"Sometimes you're a real bitch, Trish."

"Please. Climb on his lap and take him, Lady. He's not some sweet young ingenue. A man like Dante? He wants you to make the first move. Get the fucking out of the way and the love will follow."

"I don't want his love."

"Lady," Trish laughed, shaking her head, "Who are you kidding here? I can, literally, read your mind."

And Lady turned toward the window, ignoring her. Amused, Trish let it be as she drove on. She was one of those people that loved a good mush story. Despite breaking the chains of being Mundus' puppet, she was still finding her way through human emotions. She used the ones that emerged every day to help bind her to what she enjoyed.

She liked Soap Operas - she and Dante would watch afternoon trash and dish about all night long.

She liked cats - dogs were not her favorite creature at all.

And she liked romance.

The way Lady looked at Dante? It felt a lot like romance. And there were enough echoes of maternal instinct in her toward Dante to have her wishing he'd open his eyes and look back.

She might like to have a little baby to play with sometimes. It was curious to note that she didn't, entirely, think Dante would be a bad father. He was gruff. He was selfish. He was overtly a lecherous shit when it suited him.

But there was no one on Earth - or in hell- more loyal. He'd proven he had the edges of an uncle with Nero. Was it so hard to shift from Uncle to "dad"?

Trish started to ask after the possibility when the fire licked the sky above the van in a serpentine tongue of struggle. The sound of continuous gunfire and blaring alarms followed closely. It was easy enough to figure out that someone in the bunker had NOT taken kindly to Dante's arrival.

Without a word, Trish hit the gas and angled toward the waiting disaster.

Part of her was kind of hoping that the sexist little shit they'd been hired to protect had pissed off the man in red and received a torpedo up the ass as a reward.

She raced toward the fire, even as she pictured what kind of booties she'd love to knit for Lady and Dante's adorable bundle of joy with bi-colored eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first foray in years into the Devil May Cry arena. I haven't finished 5 yet, so I don't know how it ends. There won't be any spoilers on my part. This exists in a void somewhere between 4 and 5. I'm a Resident Evil junkie, so for me to attempt to write for other fandoms is something of a shock for myself.


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